Plate mold systems comprise a top mold plate and a bottom mold plate. During the molding process, the top mold plate and the bottom mold plate are brought together. Subsequently, molding compound is injected into the mated plates.
In conventional plate mold manufacturing environments, a variety of plate mold pairs may be in use at any one time. A problem which arises in such an environment is the mismatch of mold plates. That is, the mold plate from a particular pair is incorrectly matched with a mold plate from a different pair. When such a mismatched pair is brought together by the mold press, the mold plates are usually destroyed because they have incompatible mold features.
Another problem which arises in conventional mold press environments is the misalignment of mold plates in the mold press. For example, a mold plate may not be inserted all the wall into the press along the press guide rails. Alternatively, the mold plate may be inserted backwards. If such conditions occur, the mold plates will be destroyed when the press is closed.
What is needed is a method for detecting mold plate identification information and a plate mold matching system which prevents the incorrect mismatch of mold plates, and prevents press closure if a plate is misaligned. It would be desirable if such a method and system was also capable of tracking use history information such as number of uses of a particular mold plate, etc. Such information could be used for statistical process control analysis, for example.